Tag: 1983

Thursday’s Theme Music

We lined it up and took our shot, which landed on Thursday, August 25, 2022. It’s a good day to celebrate and rejoice, endure and persist, recover and comeback. Aren’t they all, to one person or another? Yes, depends on where everything aligns on the spectrum of the moment that day for that individual.

Our alignments bring us sunrise and sunset at 6:29 AM and 7:56 PM, respectively. Our air temp is 20 C but it feels warmer. Asking why, I realize that my cool mountain air seems to be AWOL because everything was too heated yesterday to properly cool down over night, and much of the snow that helped generate that cooling effect has melted away into the streams, rivers, and cisterns. Today’s alignments of pressure systems, rotation, revolution, and sunny influence will take us to 97 F in our valley.

The nearest fire is Rum Creek, northwest of us by some distance. Favorable winds are keeping us happy as kittens as our air quality is lushly green, but those in other areas must bear the smoke and particles. Fingers crossed for the people of Galice and that region’s plant and animal life that the fire’s destruction is limited.

The Neurons are playing “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel. The song came out in 1983 and was quickly a ubiquitous song, heard on AM, FM, and TV so frequently, one was soon reaching to change the channel when it came on as the overexposure began grating nerves. Inspired by his girlfriend, Elle McPherson, Whitney Houston, and the woman who became his GF and then his wife, Christie Brinkley – a story told frequently back then — who were hanging out that day, the song has a definite throwback sound to an earlier rock and roll era. The Neurons selected it today because I glanced at a headline, Billy Joel Welcomes Olivia Rodrigo for ‘Deja Vu,’ ‘Uptown Girl’ at Madison Square Garden.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

The sun strode into Tuesday at 6:47 AM with bright, bold steps that dazzled our retinas. Warmth is still trickling in, as we’re at 37 F right now, but hope to strike the fifties. A snowstorm hit the higher elevations during the last several days. You had to be at 5,000 feet to feel it, so we’re a few thousand feet too low. We hope it’ll add to the miserly snowpack, but dire predictions have already emerged for this year. Many meteorologists suggest it would take years of big storms to end the drought and replenish our lakes and cisterns.

The cost of water is skyrocketing. Looks like the city golf course can no longer afford water. Of larger concerns are the many small farms that dot our valley and provide us with local produce. The city and area are on top of this, building many more low-income units. These typically start in the 300K range and climb. Nothing stops the wealthy from buying them and renting them out, though. Some shout, “Low -income housing is what we need, look at the homeless here.” Don’t know where they think the homeless are going to acquire the money for a mortgage. Others say, we don’t need more housing, we don’t have the water. But the houses keep going up.

Today is April the fifth, 2022, a day pretty similar to many others. Sunset will be at 7:41 PM.

The neurons have been busy streaming several different songs in the morning mental music stream. They also added an old jingle: “To get right to the heart of the matter, where there’s smoke, where there’s smoke, where there’s smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s danger of heart and lung disease.” I don’t know why the little monkeys played that for me.

Anyway, eventually they unearthed John Mellencamp’s 1983 song, “Little Pink Houses”, a song more in accordance with what was actually passing for thought in my head.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask if you need to, get the vax as, when, if needed, etc. Stay informed and think critically. Here’s the music. I’m going to go caffeinate some neurons. See if that settles them down a little. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Welcome to the Day of Frig, or Friday. Can you frig off on Friday? Does the expression ‘frig off’ owe anything to the Germanic Goddess, Frigg? Maybe she went about telling people that.

It’s March’s last day. Won’t be sorry to see the rear of March, 2022. Started out solid, but soured. For the record, the date is March 25, 2022.

Sunrise came in like it was half-asleep at 7:06 AM, although plenty of light was showing up much earlier than that. I always like that about this time of year, how the sun’s presence is announced in a false dawn almost an hour before. Sunset is due at 7:29 PM. It’s a chilly spring morning, 52 F, on our way to 67.

The heat didn’t come on this morning. It was chilly outside, yes, but we usually have heat. I checked and it was 66 in the house. The thermostat says ‘Heat On’, but I don’t hear any heating sounds issuing. I suspect that I’m to blame. I had to change the batteries in the thermostat yesterday — it’s a semi-smart one, with several different heating or cooling combos that that can be set for different periods of the day — and dropped it. Might have knocked some of its delicates askew. Either that, or it’s the stupid controller card again. The controller card has been replaced before, and this doesn’t exist the same symptoms. I’m better on the thermostat and will install and try a new one later today.

The morning mental music stream is aswirl with chaotic song fragments. I’m settling for a Jackson Browne song from his Lawyers in Love album of 1983. I believe I’ve used it before but I’m too lazy to look today. These lines hooked me as being the right theme music for today:

I know it’s late and you’re already down
You ain’t ready for people around
I’m gonna tell you something I found out
Whatever you think your life is about
Whatever life may hold in store
Things will happen that you won’t be ready for

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as science dictates for the situation, and get the shots when needed. I’m almost ready to rock. Just need a little coffee first. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Saturday’s daylight is a thin gruel. Clouds dilute its potency, taking the light from blazing whisky to tepid tea. Enough light has wormed through the parting clouds that snow is seen on the surrounding mountain ranges. That’s something to cheer on for today, March 5, 2022. They’ll be updating the water tables and snowpack information this week, giving us a peek into our future expectations vis-à-vis our drought and water situation this summer. Sunrise came at 6:40 AM and the sun’s dip beneath the horizon at daylight’s end will be at 6:06 PM. We’re grinding closer to twelve hours of daylight. Moving toward the time shift, too, just when I’m starting to feel sorted. Temperatures smack of late winter/early spring — let’s call it lawiearing, pronounced ‘la wearing’ — with the current thermometer reading of 40 F (but it feels like 34) and an expectation of 44 for the high, much like yesterday.

I have two sick cats today. One isn’t eating, vomits once in a while, and remains aloof. The other is being turned into the elephant cat with tumors but still pushes to eat, socialize, and drink water. Caring for them challenges every aspect of normalcy. My admiration for full-time caregivers continue to rise. They must have enormous capacities to care for others and patience that’s beyond human.

I have Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders singing “Middle of the Road” from 1983 up in the morning mental music stream. I was first thinking about 1983 from a comment related to me from my wife about a friend. That was like the pebble that rolls down and creates an avalanche. Then, you know, I looked out of the window and wondered, “What’s that in the middle of the road?” That’s all the cheeky little neurons needed to light the song up in my head.

Come on, baby. Let’s get some coffee in the middle of the road. Stay positive, etc., knock on wood and fingers crossed that it’ll work well as masks are slipped away in a bureaucratic striptease. Here’s the song. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2023, has chugged into the calendar station with all the screeching, hisses, and sighs of an old steam locomotive coming to a halt. It’s February’s final Sunday for 2023. One sixth of the year’s months have passed us. Or we passed them.

The gray light seeping through filtering clouds must pass for daylight. That started at 6:50 AM. The daylight hours will end shortly after the sunset at 5:58 this evening. Meanwhile, the valley is seeing a warmer today. Never dropped below 49 degrees F during the night. Now at 52, we expect a high of 60 F. Rain showers may fall.

Had songs from Little Shop of Horrors in the midnight mental music stream. Rocky Horror Picture Show songs followed. They’re gone from the morning mental music stream, which is instead featuring U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. “How long must we sing this song? How long?” The song was released in 1983. U2 members say that it’s about the cycle of violence and doesn’t stand for any specific incidents. Thats what we’re seeing in Ukraine, isn’t it? The cycle of violence. Using war under political cover to kill others, steal, and pervert civilization. We’ve been doing it a long time. How much longer will it happen?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m off for the morning ration of coffee. Here’s the tune, from Live Aid in 1985. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

We’ve slipped the surly bonds of one day and into the grasp of another. I shall call this one, Thursday the thirteenth of January, 2022. Having said it, the reality spreads like a virus, infecting everyone.

Sunrise, if you believe your mind and eyes, entered our sliver of being in Ashland at 7:38 AM. The sun will slip away and give us over to night at 5:02 PM. Mild winter weather still coddles us, 54 F now, at almost noon, with room for a few more degrees of warmth today. Syrupy white clouds mingle with gray, waiting to be stirred and spead over long blue legs.

“Photograph” by Def Leppard (1983) cropped into the morning mental music stream. My wife’s mother passed away Feb 18, 2018. A picture of the woman is in my office on top of a book club. Taken toward the end of her eighty-five years, intelligence and humor still rumbled in her blue eyes then, not so much in the last year of her life. Seeing the photograph brought out the song. So, why? Don’t know what the neurons are up to. I’m just the vessel.

Stay positive. Test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosts when you can. Have coffee if you sway that way. I do, and I will. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

And yea, verily, snow did come unto the valley, kissing all with fat white lips and leaving its imprint. But lo, clouds parted, and the sun did see the snow and said, let me shine on the scene, and thus most of the snow was melted away, although remnants remained as a mark of what hath transpired. Or something like that.

Today is Thursday, December 16, 2021. Yesterday was a snow battle arena here. Snowed and rained alternatively throughout the daylight hours with the temperature darting up to 35 and slinking down to 31 during the same period. Darkness would stretch hands over us and the lights would come on. Then the sun managed a mild breakthrough and sunlight dazzled us.

That’s down here. The story on the upper elevations, say over 3,000 feet, had a solid snow onslaught. A boon for the snowpack but a curse on the Interstate. Siskiyou Pass on I5 was closed, and the California side remains closed. Stopped cars and trucks snaked alongside the Interstate for miles. Online videos show harrowing scenes of sliding and spun-out vehicles. Onramps were blocked by emergency vehicles sending their blue, red, and amber marks into the night, signs, and orange pylons. Winter was here.

Now it’s 36 F. Sunny with bloated and uneasy clouds crowding in like shoppers on the last shopping day. A mix of rain and snow is expected with highs in the lows 40s. Daylight began at 7:33 AM and will cease at 4:40 PM.

A Peter Gabriel song featuring Kate Bush is hovering over the morning mental music stream. I’ve featured it before and am disinclined to dub it this day’s theme music. Fortunately, Simple Minds song was recalled. I told the cat — Papi, who keeps trying to believe that the weather is gonna improve at any second, but is then driven back in by the mean elements — “Come in, get out of the rain.” Also, come in, get out of the snow. And the cold. And the wind. Anyway, these exhortations triggered memory of the song, “Waterfront”.

Hope you enjoy it. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the booster and vaccine jabs when you can. There’s a new variant in town, you know. We’re all watching to see what they’ll do.

Hey, look at that. Time for coffee. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Wind chuckles and snarls. Snow rides gravity and wind in helter-skelter frenzy. I pet the cats and watch out a window. The cats turn happy faces up to me and purr.

Today is Wednesday, December 15, 2021. The sunrise fingered the valley at 7:32 AM and the world’s spin will take its influence away at 4:40 PM. It’s 31 degrees F. The snowman cometh. The city opens up the Grove as a no-frills shelter for the homeless. Churches cautiously invite the homeless in from the cold, too.

With the snow falling, I squandered time trying to remember snow-themed rock songs outside of holiday offerings. “Snowblind” and “Snow Blind Friend” answer the neurons. “Yellow Snow”. “Sand Castles in the Snow”. Oh, yeah, the Moody Blues one, “December Snow”, too sad and mellow for now. Of course, the first two songs are about drug addiction, so. Not really the spirit sought.

I started thinking about change, seasons, and the nature of 2021. Half-remembered lyrics engaged me.

One summer never ends
One summer never began
It keeps me standing still
It takes all my will

Ah. The Motels. “Suddenly Last Summer”. Not exactly fast paced nor uplifting, yet here it was in the morning mental music stream.

The wind has tired out but sings a higher, steady note. One cat remains in the window perch, weather gazing, while the others have surrendered to naps. Temperature has climbed to 34 F, close to today’s high. Snow still falls but it’s melted off the streets. Suddenly, you know?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaccines and booster shots. Cause suddenly, things change. Not so suddenly, I need my morning cuppa. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

“Sunshine,” my heart shouted. “Blue skies! Woo hoo!”

“I see some fog rolling in over the mountains,” my brain replied.

“Shut up,” my heart snapped. “You’re always trying to bring me down with your facts. Just let me enjoy the sunshine.”

“They say snow is on the way,” my brain observed.

So began Thursday, December 9, 2021, with a little heart and brain give and take. At 7:28 AM, the sun cracked the sky and sunshine spilled through the valley. The sun fest will continue until 4:39 PM. It’s 31 degrees F outside right now, and sunny, as my heart noted. My brain is right, though, snow levels are forecast to drop to 2000 feet and flurries are expected throughout the day. Clouds are marshalling over the ranges outside my western windows as I type.

I have “Crumblin’ Down” by John Cougar Mellencamp (1983) playing in the morning mental music stream. A general sense of change inspired the song’s entry into the brain’s holding pattern. Shifts are going on; walls are tumbling down, which led to crumbling down, which beget — well, you get it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. Here’s the music. Where’s my coffee? I must’ve been perambulating about with the cup in hand. Now I’m on a search and drink mission. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

“Life is the essence. The essence is rock and roll. Rock and roll is life.” – Dead Smokers’ Society

Ahoy. How are my fellow travelers this day? For further reference, this day shall be defined as Monday, November 8, 2021. Not many days are left to this hallow year. The countdown has commenced; the end is nigh. Fake Christmas trees are being advertised as on sale on television, discounted up to 50%. What a bargain.

Sunrise was a pleasant diffusion to night at 6:52 AM, rolling in louder and bolder through a sky unwrinkled by clouds and their threats. Sunset cometh at 4:59 PM. With that short period and the tilt, we expect highs in the low fifties F and lows in the thirties. It’s 39 F at the moment. BTW, a strong wind advisory has been issued for this afternoon and evening. Batten down the light stuff and bring the domestic beasts in.

Two of our housecats have taken to the change in time without issue. They just seem to accept the time change. The problems anticipated from them didn’t materialize. The old man, however, arose at his usual hour, visited my face, then went down to the bedroom entrance and grumbled his annoyance. “It’s breakfast time. Where is my food? What’s the matter with you? Why aren’t you getting my food for me? What have I done to you that you treat me in this callous manner?”

Yes is dominating the morning mental music stream with a 1983 song, “Changes”. Specific lyrics inspired its rise:

Change changing places
Changes
Root yourself to the ground
Word to the wise – Well you get what’s coming
One word – One word can bring you round
Changes

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Remember, let’s stay positive out there. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed. Get the vax and booster when you can. Here’s the music. Carpe diem. I’m gonna go seize a cuppa coffee. Cheers

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